Football Outsiders: Young Redskins Cornerbacks Have Lots Of Unknowns And Upside

This year I had the chance to ask Football Outsiders a few questions on behalf of Hogs Haven. Football Outsiders provides in depth stats that you can’t find anywhere else. There signature metric is DVOA which not only takes into account statistics but it measures efficiency and accounts for circumstance. They don’t just aim to through out numbers though their goal is to provide objective writing and analysis backed by their research to improve and change that way football is written about. Their work has been featured in Sports Illustrated, ESPN, SB Nation, CBS Sports, and Bleacher Report.

Here is today’s question and answer:

Hogs Haven: The Redskins traded Kendall Fuller and didn’t re-sign Bashaud Breeland they are counting on Quinton Dunbar, Fabian Moreau, or Orlando Scandrick to hold down the other starting CB position how do you think the unit will fair against their competition this year?

Football Outsiders: Dunbar probably has the most upside -- which isn’t saying a lot. He has played 40 games for Washington, but the coaches only trusted him to play 931 snaps on defense (about 23 snaps per game) in his first three seasons. He has never had enough playing time to qualify for our cornerback coverage tables, which is a bad sign by itself. However, if you combine the numbers from his first three seasons, you get a success rate (when Dunbar forced an incomplete pass or a short completion) of 55 percent, and he allowed 6.9 yards per target, on average. Those are good numbers -- they would have ranked in the low 20s among qualifying corners last year. If he can maintain that level of play over a full season, he’ll be fine. Moreau is very much an unknown. He only saw 59 snaps on defense in 16 games as a rookie. That includes just 11 targets in pass coverage, with a success rate of 52 percent and 10.9 yards allowed per pass, though those are basically meaningless in such a small sample size. Scandrick is likely toast. He was a backup for most of his time in Dallas. He has been terrible since tearing his ACL and MCL and missing all of 2015, failing to make the top 50 in either success rate or yards allowed per target in the last two years. And he is now 31 years old and likely to decline, not improve.

Thanks to Vincent Verhei who you can follow on twitter @FO_VVerhei

I was surprised FO thinks Dunbar has the most upside of the young corners. Quinton has well exceeded expectations coming into the league not only as an UDFA but also switching positions. Despite his limited work most Redskins fans would say Dunbar is a decent corner but personally I think he has a clear ceiling. Moreau of course is the superior athlete who switched positions in college but has shown flashes that he could have starting corner potential. Like FO said both players will have their shot to develop this year with increased playing time. We’ll have to see which one steps up more.

You can pick up a copy of Football Outsiders 2018 Almanac here